


Forget Me Not

by csi_sanders1129



Category: General Hospital (TV 1963)
Genre: Abuse, Feelings, Hospitals, Injury, M/M, Memory Loss, Roommates, Temporary Amnesia, mob
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-12
Updated: 2010-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:29:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26908171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/csi_sanders1129/pseuds/csi_sanders1129
Summary: Jason was looking forward to returning home. He hoped that that, at least, would be familiar, so he could get his mind off of the things that he didn’t recall. Like Damian Spinelli.
Relationships: Jason Morgan/Damian Spinelli





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted February-March of 2012.
> 
> Finally finished this with substantial help from suerum. Ugh, a bit AU, but not overly so. Just pretend Franco wasn't around and you'll be fine. Characters aren't mine. Comments and kudos are awesome. Enjoy!

Spinelli really hated walking through the park these days.

After first finding Georgie, lying there, dead, he’d avoided it as much as possible. Then, he stumbled upon Maxie lying unconscious there, and he’d feared the worst. In the exact same spot, practically in the exact same pose. His heart had nearly stopped. Subsequent to finding his beloved Maxie there, brutalized by the moronic Russian thugs, he’d vowed never to walk through the park again.

Until today. Today, he needed to get to Sonny’s as soon as possible. A storm was practically flooding Port Charles, power lines were down all over the place, and Jason was unreachable. Max had managed to get through to the Penthouse – where Spinelli had been awaiting his Master’s return – and asked him to run over to Mr. Sir’s and deliver a message to Jason. Max would have done it himself, he’d said, had he not been trapped in one of the warehouses due to the storm.

So, here he was, rushing through the torrential downpour, howling wind, and occasional crash thunder and lightning in his mad dash across the park.

Then he neared the dreaded steps.

It was a ridiculous phobia. Much like his unfounded fear of clowns and his slightly more logical distaste for elevators. Really. What were the chances of him finding someone else on those steps? He was running out of potential candidates for the position. The only person whom he cared about and hadn’t yet found on the steps was the very man he was going to see. But, then…

Oh, no, not again, he thought, as the muddled figure of a human being lay strewn out across the concrete. He couldn’t quite make out who it was through the heavy sheets of rain, so he drew closer. He was fairly certain his heart did stop this time, as he gazed down upon his mentor’s unconscious form.

“Stone Cold!” He shouted, falling to his knees beside the man. His fingers landed on Jason’s water-chilled neck, searching frantically for a pulse he couldn’t locate with the torrent of rain pounding against Jason’s skin.

“No, no, no…” He mumbled frantically, mind torn on what to do. He could leave Jason here, out in the rain and go for help. With so many enemies running around at the moment, leaving the man lying completely vulnerable in the park did not seem the wisest choice to make, and Jason was considerably heavier than Maxie, so he opted for his third choice.

He doubted his cell phone would work in these conditions, with so many lines down, but he had to try. Luckily - and he sent up a silent prayer of thanks to whomever happened to be listening - the sound of a phone ringing on the other end of the line came through, and a moment later, he was connected to 911. He called in the location, one he was far too familiar with by this point, and then slammed the phone shut, returning his attention to Jason.

It was only then that he noticed the faint stream of red in the rainwater descending the steps. It had begun to stain his soaked jeans, and Spinelli then searched frantically for its source. Finally determining it to be coming from the back of Jason’s head, he was rather thankful he hadn’t tried to move the elder man.

“Stone Cold. Come on, wake up.” He begged. He could not, would not, lose another person he loved to this damned park. No. He outright refused. He leaned over Jason’s body enough to interrupt the flow of rain and felt desperately for a sign of life once again. Where there should have been a beating pulse, there was nothing. Breathing was hard to distinguish given the torrent of rain that assaulted both of them, so Spinelli opted to perform CPR instead of sitting idly by. He pressed his hands over Jason’s sternum and sincerely hoped he could pull this off without breaking any ribs. After a grueling thirty chest compressions, Spinelli moved to carefully tilt Jason’s head back. He covered Jason’s mouth with his own and pinched his nose shut and breathed precious air into the older man’s lungs.

“Come on…” he begged, as he watched the air make Jason’s chest rise and then fall again. He repeated the process again, and then checked for a pulse. Still nothing. Back to the chest compressions. One, two, three… all the way to thirty he went again, and then moved for two more rescue breaths. Checked the pulse again, and this time the feel of a slow, rhythmic beat under the tips of his fingers made Spinelli heave a sigh of relief. Alive. He was still alive.

His head fell idly to rest against Jason’s rain-soaked shirt, glad that he may have helped just the smallest bit in return for all the things Jason had always done for him. “Alive…” He panted, with a hysterical smile.

The wail of sirens fast approaching made his relief flare even further. He yelled, calling out for them. And a moment later two paramedics in navy windbreakers were pushing him away. Spinelli told them what he had done before they’d arrived even as they braced Jason’s neck and wheeled him into the ambulance quickly.

“If you’re coming, get in.” One of the medics called, yelling to be heard over the rain as he held the door open for him. Spinelli hopped in, sitting on the bench where they instructed him, as they began to work on the other man. They hooked up an IV, checked his pulse and temperature. Said things Spinelli didn’t even try to comprehend as a third medic drove them toward General Hospital.

The whole time, Spinelli sat, clutching the other man’s hand for dear life.

***

It was already dark out when Jason had started his trek across town to Sonny’s. It shouldn’t have been, at only 3 in the afternoon, but the heavy cloud-cover made it seem more like midnight. The rain was already coming down in sheets by the time he’d reached the park, making the public area one of virtual abandon.

“Yeah, Max. I’ll be at the office in a few minutes.” He said, trying to keep his cell phone from soaking up too much water. “Let me know what you find.”

“ _I’ll get back to you in a little while. Milo and I are going through the information now_.” Max told him, and the phone call ended with that.

Jason ducked his head and walked a little faster through the park, intent on his destination, thinking over everything that had to be discussed during this meeting – The building strength of the Irish mob in Port Charles, what should be done to control them, safety concerns pertaining to both Sonny’s place and the Penthouse, but mostly to the latter - so that Spinelli would be safe and secure there… The list went on and on.

While he was still on alert, the sound of the rain and wind covered up his attackers approach quite effectively, he realized, all too late to stop it.

The piece of metal – a crowbar, maybe, he’d thought in the brief flicker of a second before it hit – came out of nowhere. Before he’d even realized it, he’d been down.

***

Upon arriving at the hospital, everything had been a blur. They’d sent him to the waiting room while they wheeled Jason into the depths of the hospital.

Eventually, Robin appeared in front of him. “Spinelli?” She asked, voice hesitant when she spotted the blood stains on his pants. “Are you hurt?”

He shook his head mutely, eyes glued to the tiled floor.

He only looked up when Robin sat down beside him. “If you’re not hurt, why are you here? And you’re soaked, too.”

“The Jackal found Stone Cold incapacitated in the merciless park. In the same locale as he once did the Wise Georgie and then the Fair Maximista. Could… could you perhaps ascertain any information on the Stone Cold one’s condition?”

Robin, who had looked suitably worried since Spinelli had mentioned the fact that Jason had been hurt, quickly nodded. “Of course. I’ll be back in a minute.” She said, scurrying off to go check on his condition, as much for her own sake as Spinelli’s.

She reappeared only a moment later, a grim look on her face that sent Spinelli’s heart through the floor. “Is he…?”

“He’s stable.” Robin said, and she watched him visibly relax, she offered him a set of dry scrubs. “But he’s still out. He has a pretty bad concussion.”

“Might the Jackal be able to see him?”

“He’s Patrick’s case. I’ll have to check with him. Why don’t you go and change while I do that?”

He nodded and slipped away long enough to do as instructed. Robin was still on the phone when he returned, but she ended the call just a moment later. “Alight. Follow me.” She instructed, and Spinelli was practically on her heels as she led him toward the room Jason had been placed in. “If he wakes up, call for a nurse. I’d stay, but I still have rounds.”

The young man nodded, falling into the seat beside his mentor’s hospital bed.

It was an unnerving experience to see Jason so still and unmoving, just as it was equally unnerving to see him lying on the cold concrete steps in the park.

“Stone Cold?” He said quietly, cautiously. No answer came, and he scooted his chair closer to the hospital bed. “Jason?”

The only answer he received was the monotonous beeping and pulsing from the EKG monitor on the other side of the bed. So he resigned himself to the wait.

Four hours passed in slow succession, and eventually Spinelli found himself sleeping restlessly in the uncomfortable chair, his head resting on the edge of the bed. The beeping of the monitor abruptly faltered from its previous pattern and alarmed Spinelli into consciousness, because if that sound meant what he thought it did, Jason had just flat-lined.

But, when he looked up, he found heavy-lidded blue eyes slowly blinking down at him in pure confusion. The EKG electrodes that had previously been attached to Jason’s chest had evidently been removed, no doubt by the uncooperative patient himself.

“The Jackal is glad to see that you’re awake and well, Stone Cold.” Spinelli greeted with a relieved smile.

The look of confusion was still present. “Stone Cold?” Spinelli prompted again.

“Who are you?”

***

The first thing he’d noticed, upon returning to consciousness, had been the pounding ache in his skull. A feeling he was regrettably familiar with, but that didn’t make it any better.

He was in the hospital. That much he assessed from the monotonous beeping from the EKG monitor. That had to go. Eyes still closed, not ready to deal with light or anything at all yet, he blindly groped along the cords on his chest, tugging the annoying little adhered things off of him and tossing them aside. There was a bruise there, as well, in the center of his chest. Someone had performed CPR on him. That was somewhat alarming.

The obnoxious beeping that followed the removal of the EKG strips was even worse than their intermittent noises, and it was in his inspection of how to make that noise cease and desist that he discovered he was not alone. A boy, just out of his teens, Jason would have guessed, was curled up in the chair, leaning on the side of the bed. He had… no idea whom this person was.

He startled awake a second later, Jason figured it was because of the noise.

“The Jackal is glad to see that you’re awake and well, Stone Cold.” The nameless kid greeted him, with a cheery smile on his face that went so far as to light up his deep green eyes. They’re… familiar, in the kind of way one found various people on the street familiar. ‘One of those faces’ or something like that.

Jason didn’t answer the confusing salutation, unaware as to what a jackal had to do with anything and who this ‘Stone Cold’ person was.

“Stone Cold?” The kid prompted again, looking decidedly worried this time.

Jason stared, “Who are you?” He asked, because it was all he really wanted to know. He knew who he was, he knew why he was here – or at least had a general idea, given that his head was still pulsing with pain – but this kid, who looked so concerned, so invested in his apparent well-being, who was he?

***

Spinelli stared back at Jason in something akin to absolute horror. Jason… didn’t recognize him? Knowing, as he did, of his mentor’s previous encounters with amnesia, his concern multiplied exponentially. If this was anything like the incident that had turned Jason Quartermaine into Jason Morgan then there was little hope that the best friendship the Ace of Cyberspace had ever had would survive.

“Pardon?” He asked, voice wavering slightly.

“I don’t know who you are.” Jason said, matter-of-factly. “What’s your name?”

“Damian Spinelli.” He answered, watching for signs of recognition in his mentor. “You truly don’t know me, Stone Cold?”

The elder shook his head. “What’s a Stone Cold?”

Spinelli frowned. “You are. It is but a nickname that your humble Jackal has for you.”

“…I have a jackal?”

He might have laughed a little bit at that. “No, that is, I am the Jackal, the Ace of Cyberspace.”

“Oh.”

***

The complex exchange, full of nicknames and words he couldn’t quite follow at the moment left his headache exponentially worse and it wasn’t long before a nurse happened to poke her head in and realize he was awake. She notified Robin, who notified Patrick. They both showed up and promptly pulled the strange kid, Spinelli, out of the room.

“Spinelli says you don’t remember him?” Robin inquired, while Patrick took stock of his patient.

Jason nodded, and found it relieving that he recognized both of them, even seemed to know of recent events in their lives – like their wedding and baby Emma. He said as much to the doctors and then added, “He can’t have been around that long if I remember that much, right?”

Robin and Patrick exchanged confused looks. “Spinelli’s been with you since 2006.”

Patrick, at that, sent him off for some tests before his notoriously testy patient could recall that he was in the midst of an escape attempt before Spinelli’s presence had interrupted him.

***

The tests, Spinelli learned some three hours later, revealed nothing that would explain Jason’s rather specific memory loss. It seemed he recalled a good portion of events, just none that had anything to do with him. It’s as if he’d never existed in Jason’s world.

“He’s signing himself out on us.” Patrick reported, tossing the discharge paperwork at an unsuspecting secretary.

Spinelli scrambled to follow after him, inquiring about anything he should look out for, do and not do, and Patrick informed him in detail.

“It’s very important that he stays unstressed by all of this. He might remember, he might not. Don’t push him to try to do anything or think of something. Just look out for him.” The doctor listed, offering him some helpful pamphlets on the situation. He handed Spinelli a prescription for some light pain meds. “If any headaches start, make sure he keeps it under control or else get him back in here.”

“The Jackal will not fail.” The younger said, and headed back to Jason’s room to collect his roommate for the trip home – he’d already put a call in to Max for a ride back to Casa de Stone Cold.

Before he could get there, however, his cell phone rung, and peculiarly, it was Mr. Sir’s number appearing on screen. It was then that Spinelli realized that he, the doctors, and Max were the only ones who had been made aware of Jason’s altered state. He also reminded himself that Jason’s cell phone was likely destroyed in the rainstorm and if Mr. Sir was desperate enough to call him for Jason’s whereabouts, something must have been up.

“’Tis the Jackal,” Spinelli greeted, not terribly enthusiastically.

“ _I know that, freak boy, I called you.”_ Sonny spat back at him. “ _Where’s Jason?”_

“Stone Cold cannot speak with you at the moment. He was injured and needs to recuperate.” The hacker responded, quite bravely in the face of Sonny Corinthos.

Sonny didn’t even seem to hear him. “ _Let me talk to Jason_.”

“Negative, I will relay any information you might have to Stone Cold that will not put any undue stress upon his recovery.”

“ _What happened to him?”_

“He… he does not recall certain aspects of recent years.”

Sonny seemed to hum in intrigue at that information and Spinelli found himself wondering if it were wise to tell him or not. “ _Fine, I’ll talk to him later.”_ And he hung up before the hacker could further respond.

Before he could once again attempt to venture into the hospital room housing his currently absent-minded mentor, his phone rang out again, this time displaying Maximista’s number. That was an equally strange occurrence these days, as they didn’t talk much anymore, courtesy of a rather messy break-up.

“’Tis I, the Jackal,” He greeted again, with about as much enthusiasm as he’d had with Sonny’s call.

“ _Oh, good_.” Maxie’s voice chirped in his ear. “ _You’re there. I need your help with something, Spinelli. Can you come over to Crimson? It’s an emergency, I swear.”_

Spinelli bit his lip. She sounded truly distressed by whatever emergency she had, but Stone Cold… He didn’t think that his master should be left alone with his current state. “Will this issue take long?” He inquired. “The Jackal has some most pressing situations of his own.”

“ _No, no_.” She assured him. “ _It won’t take long, but I really need your help. Please, Spinelli?”_

“I’ll be there shortly.” He promised, and ended the call with a quick goodbye so that he could inform Max that he wouldn’t be joining them on the trip home.

***

Jason was looking forward to returning home. He hoped that that, at least, would be familiar, so he could get his mind off of the things that he didn’t recall. Like Damian Spinelli.

And it was his familiar, clean, organized, home. But, given that he wasn’t quite clear on everything, he opted to take inventory of what had changed from his memory.

First of all, there was a laptop sitting on the desk by the door. That was new, but he figured maybe he’d just finally learned some tech skills. He even tried to start it, but found that he didn’t remember the passwords needed to gain access. Quickly giving up on that conquest, he searched the kitchen, wherein he found startling amounts of orange soda and several bags of barbeque chips. This was peculiar, given that as far as he knew, he would never consider ingesting either of them. Deciding that he’d sort out restocking his kitchen correctly later, he grabbed a water bottle and headed up to his room to get out of the hospital scrubs he’d been sent home in. His room, at least, remained totally unchanged.

Several hours after passing out on his bed, he woke to the sounds of an apparent intruder moving about downstairs. Alert immediately, and glad that those reflexes had not been forgotten, he was on his feet, and locating the gun tucked into his closet.

Slowly, he crept through the hallway and down the stairs, peering around the corner only to see…

Spinelli.

He pocketed the gun, and continued downstairs. The kid, such nerve he had, was on his computer, with a bottle of orange soda and a bag of chips set beside him, just sitting there like he owned the place.

“What are you doing here?” Jason demanded.

“Oh!” Spinelli jumped in surprise, spinning around to face him. “Pardon me, Stone Cold. I… I neglected to inform you that I reside here as well. At Casa de Stone Cold. With you.” He answered, looking quite concerned when he spotted the gun visible in Jason’s jeans. “The Jackal is most repentant for startling you, master.”

The elder seemed quite surprised by this explanation. “You do?”

“The regrettably pink room upstairs would serve as adequate proof, I imagine?” He suggested, already closing the laptop and getting to his feet.

Jason followed after him, even more surprised to find that the kid hadn’t been lying. The spare room that had once housed Brenda was still pink, but looked rather like an explosion had gone through it with various odds and ends that were apparently Spinelli’s. “Okay, you live here.” He turned and exited the room. “I’m going to Sonny’s.”

“But the medically inclined one’s requested that you stay relaxed in order to recover. Dealing with Mr. Sir’s demands would be in direct opposition to-” But Spinelli found himself talking to an empty room. Jason was already on his way out.

***

Maxie’s emergency hadn’t taken him terribly long, at least it shouldn’t have. Some data had gotten lost somewhere with regard to schedules and paychecks and such and in order to save her job from the wrath of Kate, she’d called up Spinelli to locate it in cyberspace. Unfortunately, the process took a lot longer than it would have if she’d given him accurate information, rather than mixing up a couple of dates.

All in all, he’d taken three hours to complete the task, saved her job, stopped to get Jason’s prescription filled, and returned to Casa de Stone Cold as quickly as possible. Which turned out not to matter all that much. He’d searched out Jason as soon as he’d returned and found the older man soundly asleep upstairs. Opting to let him rest, he headed back downstairs to his computer, letting it boot up and frowning in confusion when he found that someone had made attempts to get into it.

He’d been in the midst of running diagnostic scans to explain the odd phenomenon when Jason had come downstairs. Then it had all just gone badly.

Jason was obviously not thrilled to discover that he had a roommate now (even though he had technically had a roommate for several years now) and Spinelli tried not to let that get to him. But, Jason had been acting weird before the accident, too. Distant and evasive at times, it had already been putting Spinelli on edge. This was… this was just so much worse because there wasn’t anything he could do to figure this out. There was no jackaling the solution out of cyberspace for this one.

Upon Stone Cold’s leaving, he returned to his computer, knowing that showing up at Sonny’s would only make things worse.

***

His headache returned with a vengeance upon arriving at Sonny’s place – after a quick detour to the coffee house that no longer stood, and when had that happened? – and he was beginning to suspect that the kid had been right and that he should have stayed home when Sonny finally captured his attention.

“So, you don’t remember anything about Spinelli?” He asked, sounding something between suspicious and hopeful all at once.

“He’s the only person I haven’t recognized.” He informed Sonny, who certainly seemed the most solidly familiar point in his memory. He even remembered Dominic and Ethan and the various other recently arrived inhabitants of Port Charles. Spinelli seemed to be the only blank.

Sonny snorted. “I’d say that’s a good thing. Wish I could forget the lunatic.” He rolled his eyes, and dropped himself into a chair across from Jason. “The kid’s a freak. No good at all.”

“Then why is he living with me?” Jason inquired. If the kid was useless, why was he here? Was he in on the organization?

“Hey, that was your idea. Don’t ask me. I mean, yeah, the kid’s good with computers, I guess, but that’s about it. He can’t fight. He can’t shoot – unless he’s shooting himself in the foot.” Sonny shook his head at the mere thought of the good for nothing hacker. “And then there are all of his stupid nicknames. Stone Cold, Jackal, Mr. Sir. It’s insane. Hell, he calls you ‘Master’, how sick and perverted is that? The freak is a waste of space, Jason, trust me.”

Jason sat silently absorbing all of this enlightening information on the hacker, letting Sonny paint the picture of the strange cyber geek supposedly residing with him.

“Hell, he even brought the FBI down on us! And there’s that joke of a P.I. office he has.” He scoffed in utter incredulity. The phone on Sonny’s desk rang then, distracting from his Anti-Spinelli rant, and he answered with a terse, “what?”

Jason tuned the conversation out and let his mind wander back to Spinelli. Sure, the kid was weird. Strange and awkward in his own skin, it seemed. But he had a feeling Sonny was exaggerating some points. He’d have to figure out some of it for himself, he supposed, because there was no way Jason would let Spinelli stay at the Penthouse unless he had a reason.

“Sonny.” He said, pausing the elder’s phone conversation. “I’m going back to the penthouse for a bit. I’ll call you later, or something.”

Sonny nodded, and Jason took his leave.

***

Spinelli wasn’t worried. Really. Just because head injuries were risky, and Jason was out there in the rain again, and not here, where Spinelli could keep an eye on him… Had he taken the bike? Oh, god. He hoped Max had driven him to Sonny’s.

Okay, so, Spinelli was worried. Who could blame him?

Not to mention Sonny was probably filling Jason’s head with his paranoid delusions over Jason’s loyalty. This had to be Mr. Sir’s fondest wish come true. A Jason who had no loyalty to Spinelli, a reset button on his memories. Again.

The door opened and closed downstairs, prompting Spinelli to leave the haven of his room.

“Stone Cold?” He called out, following the sound of footsteps into the kitchen. Jason was there, searching out a bottle of water in the refrigerator. “How… how’s your head?”

“It’s fine.” He grumbled out, even though it was pounding.

Spinelli knew better than that. Jason would never admit to being in pain – if he ever did, Spinelli would be shocked and very, very alarmed – so, he crossed the room to the bottle of pain pills he’d picked up earlier. The Jason he knew, the one who remembered him, he could probably convince. But, this new Jason, who knew him no better than a stranger, was much less likely to give in.

He handed Jason the bottle. “In the event that you change your mind…” He offered, dropping his gaze to the floor. “Is there anything the Jackal can be of use with? Any business with Mr. Sir that needs looking into?”

Jason stared at the bottle, but then his stone cold gaze hardened and turned on Spinelli. “There is something.”

“What, Stone Cold?”

“Can you find someplace else to stay?” Jason requested, and he watched without even so much as a blink as Spinelli’s face fell and he sort of caved in on himself. “I’m not used to having a roommate. I don’t think I can handle it right now.”

Spinelli’s voice faltered when he attempted to respond. He tried again, this time with marginal success. “The, the Jackal is wary of leaving Stone Cold here alone, given the instructions from the medically inclined ones…” He fought to keep his voice even and steady, but it was only just managed.

“Really. I’m fine.” Jason insisted again. To further establish this claim, Jason stepped to the garbage can and tossed the pills away. “I don’t need anyone here babysitting me.”

“I…” Spinelli started to protest further, but Patrick’s words in the hospital gave him pause. Stressing Jason out was not a good thing to be doing – and he’d be getting enough of that from Sonny, anyway – so, as much as it hurt, as much as it sent a crushing weight down on his chest at the mere thought, he nodded. “If that is what you want, Stone Cold. I’ll take my leave in the morning. If that is amenable?”

Jason nodded. “Okay.”

Spinelli left the room as fast as he could manage after that, retreating up to the temporary sanctity of the regrettably pink room that would not be his for much longer. He shut the door behind him, and then slid down it, until his knees were pressed to his chest.

This couldn’t be happening, could it?

With his head in his hands, he cursed that damned park yet again. It had claimed Georgie, then nearly Maxie, and now it was taking the one true friendship he had ever had from him. In a way this was worse than what had become of Wise Georgie. She had been gone. It had been simple, at the end of all things.

But Jason, he was still here. Still alive and breathing, and for the most part, himself. It wasn’t that Jason had been taken away from him in a physical sense, but in a mental one that Spinelli had no bearing over. He hadn’t been removed from the puzzle, but he had been changed. And he no longer fit with Spinelli.

So, in the morning, he’d go to Kelly’s and get a room there.


	2. Forget Me Not

Jason woke the next morning to a strangely eerie silence in the penthouse. He knew it meant that Spinelli, the annoying whiz kid, had left, but somehow this knowledge did not make him more comfortable or content. He dragged himself through his typical morning routine of shower, dress, breakfast, and went downstairs only to find that the pills he’d trashed the day before had been rescued from the garbage can. Beside them, on the counter, sat a key – inscribed with ‘Casa de Stone Cold & Jackal’ and a note that had the information for where Spinelli would be staying. At the end was a hastily scrawled addendum.

‘P.S. Please, if your headaches persist or intensify, consult Doctor Robin. Or take a dose of the prescribed medications, if you will. Your Jackal implores this simple request of you, Stone Cold.’

He shook his head at the audacity of such an insistence. Leaving the key, and the note, and the pills, he stormed out of the kitchen and decided he needed some time spent with familiar company.

***

Mike had been surprised by his request for a room above Kelly’s, but after he had explained the exigent circumstances of his departure from Casa de Stone Cold, he had agreed easily enough. Upon getting settled in the small room, he headed down for breakfast.

It was then that he realized that his choice in hopefully temporary lodging was not a wise one. Nearly everybody he knew in Port Charles came to Kelly’s. As it stood, now, at close to eight in the morning, Lulu was there, no doubt for purposes of visiting with Dominic, Elizabeth had Cameron and Jake with her, picking up breakfast, and Ethan was there, as well, also chatting with Dominic and Lulu.

There would be questions. Ones that he really didn’t want to answer.

But it was none of Kelly’s current occupants who first moved to interrogate him. It was Carly, with baby Josslyn in her arms. “Spinelli?” She said, approaching him before he could somehow move to evade her presence. “I heard Jason was in the ER last night. What’s going on?”

He sighed, and stared into his scrambled egg breakfast. “Ah, Valkyrie Carly, Stone Cold received quite the bump to the head. He’s fine, for the most part.” He assured her, as he watched her jump to the most extreme conclusion. “He recalls Sonny, and Doctors Patrick and Robin, and likely young Josslyn, as well. The only thing he doesn’t seem to remember is his history with the Jackal.”

Carly frowned. “What do you mean?”

“From what Doctor Patrick told me, Jason remembers recent events, even events that the Ace of Cyberspace was involved in, such as the fire at General Hospital, but he does not remember my presence there, at all.”

“And you’re here, why? Shouldn’t you be at home, trying to get him to remember you?”

Spinelli was frowning then, as well. “The Medically Inclined Ones advised me against doing anything that could result in stressing Stone Cold out, which includes attempting to pressure him into recalling any events.” He shrugs. “He asked me to leave and I could not object. He’s probably back at Sonny’s as we speak.”

Mike called her over for her order, but Carly returned to him to add, “If I run into him, I’ll put in a good word for you.”

Spinelli nodded in silent thanks – even though he knew full well that she was up to something – and watched her go.

***

Jason liked the normalcy, the routine, the distraction, that getting back to work provided him. Despite his raging headache, he’d headed out to the warehouses to check on their inventory, as per Sonny’s orders. Max and Milo accompanied him – Jason suspected that this was under suggestion from Spinelli – but he didn’t protest.

“Boss, you really don’t remember him?” Max pressed, as he drove them out to the piers.

“Nope. Not at all.” He replied, in his well-known stone cold manner. Sonny’s words about the hacker filtered through his mind again and he added, “what’s he like?”

“Ugh, well,” Max paused, trying to work out how to best explain the complexities of Spinelli’s personality in such a way as to not bore his Boss to death. “He’s loyal to you. And he puts up with the fact that Sonny hates him for no reason at all. Before you got hurt, you relied on him-”

“A lot,” Milo tossed in.

Max glared at his brother. “And you stood up for him on occasion, especially over the whole break-up with Maxie issue.”

Jason frowned, utterly floored by that statement. “Maxie Jones? How’d he end up with her?”

“They bonded over Georgie’s death, mostly, I think. He was the one to find her body, in the park, where he found you, too, I’m pretty sure.” The body guard explained. “You were the best man at Spinelli and Maxie’s almost-wedding.”

He’s even more shocked by this information. Sonny had made it seem as if he and Spinelli were mortal enemies or something equally un-personal. He’d been figuring that he kept Spinelli around for business and nothing else, but if what Max was claiming was true then there had to have been more to it. “Almost-wedding?” He questioned.

“They ended up deciding that they weren’t ready to do that. Mac was overjoyed, in fact, he fainted.”

They were almost at the warehouse, then, so Jason let the topic drop, silence falling between them. What he didn’t tell them was that there’s a flash of an image in his mind, of himself standing beside Spinelli and Maxie and Lulu at some church. Inexplicably, he was wearing a pink tie.

Johnny was set to meet them at the location and he was already there when the SUV pulled up. “Hey,” He greeted, leading the way across Pier 52. “I just got started checking things out, but the area’s cleared. Wasn’t Spinelli supposed to come, too?”

“He’s not coming.” Jason informed Zacchara with a shrug. He expected question, but Johnny just nodded in response.

“Can’t say I blame him. I’m not particularly fond of this place, either.” Johnny glanced around, as if having cleared it himself hadn’t put him at ease.

“ _I try to protect my family, not put them in the line of fire!”_ Jason heard the line echo in his head without explanation. Was he remembering something that had taken place here? Based on Johnny’s cryptic statement he can figure that something did. Who was he trying to protect? Sonny? Michael or Morgan?

“Jason?”

He shook his head, forcing the confusing thoughts away from him for the time being. He had work to do. “I’m coming.”

***

Spinelli headed over to the offices of McCall and Jackal in hopes of having something to take his mind off of the situation with Jason. Alas, as it turned out, his active caseload was all of zero which provided him no distraction at all.

Sam met him there anyway, though and she was talking to him before he even made it in the door. “I closed out the Douglas case this morning - I tried to call you about it, but you didn’t answer at the Penthouse. Your cell went straight to voicemail.”

“Ah, my most humble apologies then, it seems as though I forgot to charge my phone.” He frowned, realizing he’d left the cable meant to do so back at Casa de Stone Cold. “How did the case go? I assume our client was happy to learn that his wife was not, in fact, being unfaithful?”

“Yup, he’s taking her on a trip to Europe to make up for his suspicions, though I would suspect she doesn’t know that part.” She explained to him, handing him the check they’d received for their efforts. “We don’t have anything to handle until that stakeout tomorrow night. How’s Jason doing?”

“You heard?” He asked, surprised. While a good few people had heard of Jason’s accident, he didn’t know who she would have found out from.

However, his supposition was incorrect. “Heard what?”

Spinelli went on to explain the string of events that led up to Jason’s isolated amnesia. “As a result of the unfortunate accident,” He concluded, at the end of the explanation, “I’m currently residing above Kelly’s.”

Sam seemed just as startled by his words as everybody else had. “You’re the only one?” She pressed him, looking confused and contemplative at the same time. “No one else?”

“So far as the Jackal has been informed, yes, I am the only one.”

“You’re sure it was an accident? Did… did he fall or something?”

It was then that Spinelli realized that he had no idea of how Jason had ended up unconscious in the rain on those damned concrete steps. “I… don’t know.” How had he not come to this same inquiry? It was basic, and the likelihood of his Stone Cold mentor simply falling and bashing his head open seemed a little too convenient for all that was going on. Jason had not simply been out for a stroll in the downpour, he had been on his way to a meeting over what to do about the Irish mob presence building in Port Charles. Someone in town had to have motive for wishing Stone Cold harm. “I will look into alternative possibilities post haste.”

She nodded and headed for the door. “I’m supposed to go meet Kristina and Molly in a little while, but I’ll look into it, too.”

Spinelli hummed in acknowledgement, his fingers already flying over the keyboard at top speeds. “Perchance you are going to visit with Stone Cold as well?” He questioned, hoping that perhaps she could aid him in avoiding another anxiety-ridden encounter with his once-mentor over the locale of his phone charger.

“Nope.” Sam answered surprisingly. “Jason and I split up, about two weeks ago, if he didn’t tell you. If he remembers that, he won’t want to see me, and if he doesn’t remember that, I don’t think I want to see him.” With that, she ducked out of their offices and headed out, leaving a very confused and surprised Spinelli behind.

Perhaps the break-up had been the explanation behind Jason’s odd and distant behavior prior to his head injury…

***

By nightfall, when Jason finally made his return to the penthouse, he was wishing that he’d never left that morning. His head was pounding – enough to force him into searching out one of the pills Spinelli had left him.

He downed the pill and a bottle of water along with it and made for the stairs with the intention of crashing for the night. He’d had meaningless bits and pieces of images and words flashing through his mind all day – bits of memories – and none of it made any sense to him. It had only succeeded in making his headache worse.

Jason had made it halfway up the steps when an impatient knock came at the door. Ignoring it seemed tempting, especially since he knew full well that the medicine he’d taken would knock him out pretty quickly, but with a sigh, he turned and crossed to the door.

“Maxie?”

“Relax.” She glared at him. “I’m well aware that you hate my guts. I’m only here to thank Spinelli for helping me out at work yesterday. I brought him a restock of orange soda. I won’t even come in if you don’t want me to, but here.” She forcefully offered him a case of Sunkist Orange and took a step back, as if waiting for the door to slam shut in her face.

“He’s not here. He’s staying at Kelly’s.” Jason informed her, even though he couldn’t explain the sick feeling that took up root in his chest as he said it. “Take it to him there.”

She just stared at him, though, making no move to reclaim the orange soda and do as he instructed. “Ugh, I’m sorry, I think I misheard you. Spinelli isn’t living here?”

“No, I asked him to leave.”

“You are kidding me, right? This is a joke because you’re still mad at me over cheating on Spinelli again.”

Jason sighed, leaned against the door frame, and then went on to explain yet again of his reasoning behind kicking his ex-roommate out of the penthouse. “It’s not a joke. I don’t remember anything about what went on with you and Spinelli.”

Maxie looked more put off by this than anything else he’d said thus far. “How… how could you do that? If you’ve been in a room with Spinelli for more than thirty seconds, you have to have seen how much he cares about you. Hell, half of the arguments we had were about living here and working for you and how you were not the heartless mob boss that I thought you were.”

He shook his head, once again pushing the invading thoughts concerning the hacker away. His head was swimming enough as it was with the pain meds taking their effect on him. “You should go.” He declared, and urged her away from the door before pushing it shut a little more violently than was strictly necessary.

Too many thoughts, too many memories, too many conflicting opinions. He needed time to sort this out, but everyone seemed intent upon putting their two cents in on the issue. He needed sleep.

But even that didn’t provide him with much of an escape. He dreamed of Spinelli, sick and delirious and rambling on with a terrifying amount of insight into the dynamics of his Stone Cold mentor’s affiliation with Mr. Sir. Dreamed of confrontations between Spinelli and Sonny where Spinelli just stood by and took whatever harsh words Sonny had thrown at him, all while Jason watched on without so much as a word of protest. Dreamed of a phone call from Maxie telling him that Spinelli had been intentionally struck down by a car, seeing Spinelli in a hospital bed, hooked up to wires and machines, and then seeing himself violently attacking the thugs who had been responsible for the hit and run.

What Jason didn’t know, however, was that these were not dreams, but memories.

***

Spinelli couldn’t sleep. He tried, honestly, he tried for a long while, but he just couldn’t. There was nothing familiar, or comforting about the room above Kelly’s. So, with his insomnia taking charge, he booted up his laptop and returned to work on his hunt for the truth behind Stone Cold’s head injury.

He’d already tried searching the scant few security cameras that had been installed following the untimely demise of Wise Georgie, but the storm had knocked them all out. Because of the weather, there were not any witnesses out and about, either, which provided Spinelli with little to go on.

It was sometime around four in the morning that he had an epiphany. Several of the storefronts just across from the park had partial views of the concrete steps that he so despised. Perchance, if they had not been similarly powered down, one of them had caught a glimpse of either the potential attack or the potential accident.

The first couple of storefronts he hacked into showed nothing but blackness and static from their power outages and downed wires, but there was a bar down one of the side-streets with a camera pointed toward the park. A very, very small portion of the frame showed the area in question, and he easily spotted Jason’s leather jacket as it passed through that very small range. A second later, another figure crossed into it as well.

It was not an accident, then. There was no way the presence of a second person in such inclement conditions was a coincidence.

Spinelli froze the frames, which were time and dated stamped, and printed the two shots as his evidence. He saved a copy of the file on a zip drive as further proof, as well. Not that any of it mattered – proving how Jason had lost his memory would not suddenly bring Jason’s memories of him back.

Even with such convincing verification of his theory firmly in hand, though, he found that sleep was still not coming to him. A glance at the clock told him it was much later, now, nearly seven, which meant that he could go and present his case.

Mike was already at work downstairs, and after polite greetings and a quickly answered request for coffee, Spinelli was out the door and on his way.

Upon Spinelli’s arrival at Casa de Stone Cold, he found that no one was home, or at least no one was answering the door. And, since he no longer possessed the engraved key that Jason had returned to him after his escape to L.A., he had no other option but to try another potential locale. He’d have to go to Mr. Sir’s…

***

Jason had only just managed to drag himself out of bed sometime just after seven. Under typical circumstances he would have been up, showered, and dressed by now. And well on his way to do whatever he had to for the day in regards to the business. But, today, he had no real intention of even leaving the penthouse.

While his skull was no longer attempting to pound and pulse its way out of his head, it still assailed him with a rather obnoxious dull throbbing that made him desire nothing more than to go back to bed.

As he stepped into the shower, he considered what he had learned of the one missing piece of his memory. Sonny had assured him, several times now, that Spinelli had been useless, a mere insignificant speck that they tolerated solely because he was good with computers. He was, however, the only person claiming this. Everyone else who he had spoken to on the matter seemed to disagree. They seemed utterly bewildered by Jason’s actions toward the hacker. According to the claims he had heard they had been friends, close friends. He’d trusted Spinelli and relied on him. Jason’s own slowly returning bits of memory corroborated this line of thinking rather than Sonny’s.

He was still considering all of this when he finished his shower, when he got dressed, when he headed downstairs, and when he headed out the door with the determination that he’d come back with answers.

***

Sonny, as Spinelli had easily predicted, was not particularly thrilled to see him. While it wasn’t as if the hacker had woken the mobster up, it was clearly not in Sonny’s plans for the day to have to deal with any cyber ramblings at such an early hour.

“Mr. Sir, the Jackal apologizes profusely for daring to disturb you, but he comes bearing unflappable evidence of an attack against Stone Cold predicated in the not-so-picturesque park.” He offered up the two photos he’d printed off from the security camera.

Sonny looked them over quickly, offering a hum of a dismissive nature as he tossed them back at Spinelli. “Whatever.”

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Sir, but if the assailant responsible is of the organization of the up and coming Irish, should something not be done to prevent further possible acts of violence?” Spinelli was decidedly confused. While he didn’t necessarily want anyone to be harmed, he’d figured that Sonny would demand revenge on the one’s who had attacked Jason. And yet he didn’t seem to care at all.

The elder crossed to his desk and leaned back against it, with an icy glare aimed at Spinelli. “I know what you’re trying to do, freak boy.”

Spinelli faltered in the argument he’d been preparing to continue, his eyes falling to the floor. It was survival instinct, really, that made him take any insults that Sonny dished out. It had worked all through school – though bullies were far less intimidating than Mr. Sir. “The Jackal… doesn’t understand Mr. Sir’s meaning…”

Sonny was pacing now. Not a good thing. It was approximately the equivalent of a caged animal. “You’re trying to convince Jason that you’re actually good for something. So that he’ll let you stay, so you can corrupt him against me again.”

“The Jackal assures you that he is attempting nothing so vindictive as what Mr. Sir suggests. He is merely trying to ensure that Stone Cold is not at risk by any unforeseen enemies.” The younger protested, voice wavering under the intense glower from Sonny.

“Yeah, right.” He scoffed, advancing on the hacker. “Look,” Sonny started, a finger pointing harshly at Spinelli, as if scolding a misbehaving puppy. “I still have no idea why Jason put up with you before, but now he doesn’t either. You’re not wanted here anymore, so why don’t you just go back to whatever planet you came from. Stay there.”

Spinelli shrunk into himself, making himself seem as small as possible – yet another defense mechanism that had proved effective in the Oakfield school systems. “I simply ask that you-”

He found himself cut off though, as Sonny shoved at him, forcing him into a wall. “You don’t know when to shut up, do you? You didn’t learn this lesson the last time? Just shut up.” Sonny said, spinning him around, not the least bit concerned by his own actions nor by the fact that the front of Spinelli’s head had bounced rather forcefully against the wall, his vision swimming. Just like last time, at Crimson. “Now, I’m not going to go after whoever attacked Jason. In fact, I’m not even going to tell him about it. You know why, freak boy? Because they did me the biggest favor ever. They got rid of you for me, and I didn’t have to piss Jason off to do it. This couldn’t have been more perfect.” For good measure, he pulled Spinelli off the wall and shoved him back again, allowing his head to hit again, but nowhere near as hard as it had before. “You’re worthless and nobody here wants you around.”

***

Jason heard every word.

He had arrived at Sonny’s just barely a moment after Spinelli had, he figured, and he’d paused just outside of the room to observe how Sonny acted towards the hacker. It hadn’t been good. Sonny was dismissive and outright hostile towards him when all Spinelli was trying to do was help.

And then there had been the hard ‘thunk’ of Sonny’s attack, coupled with comments that made it sound as if this kind of abuse was not unprecedented between the two of them. Sonny had pinned Spinelli just on the other side of the wall Jason had been leaning against, and so he heard every word that came out of his own mentor’s mouth. He fought to stay hidden for just a moment longer, hoping to hear something that would prove that not everything he had told Jason of Spinelli had been an out and out lie, but the evidence never came. Just lies and threats and more abuse.

After the second loud ‘thunk’, Jason had had enough.

Upon stepping into the room, his first action was to pull Sonny off of Spinelli, which proved harder than he had anticipated. His second was, inexplicably, to put himself between them, the younger safely out of the elder’s range.

Sonny, to his credit, had the decency to realize that he had been caught in a lie. But, it only lasted for a moment. “Jason,” He said, still glaring at Spinelli, who was swaying on his feet. “The freak came over and started harassing me about you not remembering him. I was trying to knock some sense into his head.”

Jason knew that this wasn’t true – he’d heard all of their conversation and never once had Spinelli said anything that was remotely self-serving. “You were trying to knock something into his head, alright.” He growled out, an arm wrapped around the hacker to keep him upright. “I’m taking Spinelli to the ER, and I don’t want to hear from you again.”

Sonny rolled his eyes. “Oh, don’t be dramatic. You’re not actually siding with the freak, are you?”

It took every ounce of self-control Jason possessed not to reach out and shove Sonny into a wall or two for his comments, as if there was some driving force compelling him to avenge the gross indecencies enacted against Spinelli. It was only the knowledge that Sonny might miss his own response that kept him from acting.

“We’re done, Sonny. I trusted you to tell me what I needed to know when I came to you. I didn’t remember Spinelli and instead of telling me the truth, you fed me a bunch of lies? You saw it as, what? A way to get a chance at a Spinelli-free future?” Jason shook his head. “I was the only one to forget – you still had all of Port Charles contradicting what you told me about him. You lied, and you’re still lying about it now – I can’t trust you anymore, and our business can’t work if I don’t trust you, so I’m out.”

Leaving Sonny behind them – still seething and attempting to form a protest after this ultimate betrayal from his once-loyal enforcer – Jason led Spinelli out of the house to the SUV that he’d driven over in. “Come on, let’s get your head checked out. Then, we’ll head home.”

“You mean Kelly’s?” Spinelli mumbled out, still leaning against Jason as they walked.

“No, I mean home.”


	3. Forget Me Not

The trip to the ER went quickly enough. After some tests to verify the state of Spinelli’s head, it was determined that he had a slight concussion. They gave him some light pain meds and sent him off with orders that someone keep an eye on him for the next twenty four hours. If he had been doomed to return to Kelly’s, this would have been problematic, but since Jason had repealed his ‘no-roommate’ issue, it was easy enough to deal with.

They stopped off at Kelly’s on the way back from the ER to grab Spinelli’s stuff, and to assure Mike that the room would no longer be needed, which he seemed happy to hear.

Now they were back at the Penthouse and Jason had urged Spinelli to relax on the couch for the time being. After not having slept the night previous, it hadn’t taken a lot of convincing – he’d fallen asleep within moments.

Jason checked on him every half hour, to make sure he was still alive and well and breathing. It was somewhere between checks seven and eight that there came a knock at the door.

He was admittedly concerned that it could be Sonny out for his own vengeance over Jason’s renewed loyalties, but the voice that called out impatiently wasn’t his.

“Jason, come on, I need to talk to you.” Carly requested through the door, and he pulled it open. The room was dark, which was decidedly strange for nearly two in the afternoon. “What’s-?”

He hushed her, and nodded toward the sleeping Spinelli. “Kitchen.” He said quietly, and she followed behind him as he led the way. “Sonny didn’t send you, did he?”

She shook her head, still looking confused. “What happened to Spinelli?”

“Sonny happened to Spinelli.” He replied crossly, and his tone helpfully conveyed that he would not be elaborating on how Sonny had happened to Spinelli. “What are you doing here?”

“Ugh, Spinelli told me what was going on when I talked to him yesterday.” She explained, as she claimed a chair. “I wanted to talk to you about it then, but Jax insisted that he didn’t think telling you was a good idea, not if you didn’t remember it, and I thought I agreed with him. But, then I didn’t, so here I am.”

He stared at her. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You don’t remember anything about Spinelli?” She asked him. “Not… not anything?”

“I’m starting to get bits and pieces back, but they don’t always make sense. I remember… most of the wedding, I think. Fragments of conversations.” Jason explained, as he leaned back against the counter. “But what are you talking about? Jax didn’t want you to tell me something? Is everything okay with Michael and Morgan?”

“They’re fine, Jase. Don’t worry about them.” Carly assured him. “This is about, well, you. And Spinelli.”

Alarm and concern flared in Jason’s chest, as if she were proposing that they were in some sort of potential danger. He felt compelled to go and check on Spinelli again, even though he had just done so eighteen minutes prior. “What about Spinelli?”

“A few days before you hit your head, you told me that you… thought you had feelings for Spinelli. Not in so many words, and not so straightforwardly, but that was the overall point. You said you’d broken up with Sam and you were thinking about telling him.” She explained. “And as big of a surprise as all that was, you asked me not to say anything to anyone. I told Jax after Spinelli told me what had happened, because I didn’t know what to do…”

Of everything he’d learned, both true and fallacious, concerning Spinelli in the last few days, this was by far the strangest piece of the puzzle provided to him. And yet, unlike the suspicious lies Sonny had offered him, it didn’t seem all that unrealistic an idea.

“Jason?” She prompted, when met with his silent response.

A noise came from the direction of the living room, which prompted Jason into action. Ignoring her question, an added bonus to appeasing his irrational fears over Spinelli, he was up and out of the room in seconds.

***

Spinelli had woken to darkness surrounding him, but the blurry numbers on his watch told him it wasn’t late at all, just after two in the afternoon. “Stone Cold?” He mumbled out, groggily, as his head spun in protest when he tried to sit up. “Nngh.”

After a long moment of stillness, he dared to attempt shifting his weight again, this time making it from his previous position, sprawled out across the length of the couch to something that looked more or less like sitting. Another moment and he was standing, balanced with one hand on the arm of the sofa and the other prepared to grab the coffee table.

He was nearly certain that his own pain meds – which he had no qualms about taking, unlike Jason – were in the kitchen with his mentors, an orange soda also sounded like impending heaven. Goal in mind, he stumbled dizzily toward the kitchen.

“What about Spinelli?” Jason’s voice sounded harsh and concerned as he said the words. It was enough to make Spinelli pause just outside the door to the kitchen, leaning heavily against the doorframe.

Who else was here? He hadn’t heard the door, or the phone. What if it was Sonny and Jason was in danger?

“A few days before you hit your head, you told me that you…” Okay, Spinelli sighed in relief. It wasn’t Sonny. Straining to hear, he forced himself to concentrate, which took far more effort than it rightly should have. “Thought you had feelings for Spinelli. Not in so many words, and not so straightforwardly, but that was the overall point. You said you’d broken up with Sam and you were thinking about telling him. And as big of a surprise as all that was, you asked…” She was still talking, but Spinelli’s mind had gone blank on him. Between this most shocking revelation – that certainly better explained Jason’s strange behavior prior to his head injury – and his own head injury, he’d had enough.

***

Seeing Spinelli lying on the ground was enough to send Jason into a rather extreme level of worried. Had Sonny gotten in, gotten to him somehow? Or was the concussion worse than it had appeared? These thoughts and more raced through his mind even as he leaned over his fallen roommate.

“Spinelli,” he said, on his knees beside the younger. “Come on, wake up.”

His words earned a mumbled , unintelligible reply of, “mmrnghn,” which did nothing to appease Jason’s mounting anxiety.

“Come on, wake up for me.” He tried again, shaking Spinelli’s shoulder lightly. And this time sleepy, clouded over, green eyes blinked up at him. He released a huge sigh of relief and the weight that had coiled in his stomach upon seeing Spinelli all sprawled out on the floor seemed to lift. “Good, good, you’re okay?” Jason asked, brushing the hair away from Spinelli’s face.

Even as Jason worked at helping him sit up again, Spinelli was staring around the room in confusion. “What… what happened?”

“You’re not going to tell me you forgot who I am now, right?” Jason kidded, though he abruptly reverted to traditional stone-cold, seriousness. “You must have collapsed or something, I’ll call Robin once we get you back to the couch.” He levered the younger to his feet and maneuvered him over to the sofa once again. “You alright?”

Spinelli nodded. “Affirmative, Stone Cold, though this is a most importunate headache that assails your grasshopper.”

Carly joined them in the living room, then. “Is there something I can do?” She asked, looking between Jason and Spinelli, perhaps for some sort of explanation for Spinelli’s unexpected collapse, or for the deep, purple, bruise near his temple.

Jason shook his head, though. “I’ve got it.” He assured her and she knew him well enough to get the unsaid message of ‘so, you can go’.

“Okay, well. I hope you feel better, Spinelli.” She said, nodding a good-bye as she headed for the door. “Call if you change your mind.”

With her gone, Jason’s attention was solely focused on Spinelli. He returned to the kitchen long enough to fetch a glass of water and one of the pills for Spinelli. “Take these,” He instructed, even as he dialed Robin’s number on his newly-replaced cell phone.

His eyes stayed on Spinelli while he spoke to her about what had happened. After some consideration, it was decided that, so long as nothing more occurred, and if Jason intensified his watch, Spinelli could stay at home. She also requested that Jason bring him in the following day to check up on him once more, just to be safe. With this information relayed, the call ended swiftly enough.

“Might the Jackal be able to go back to sleep now?” Spinelli requested, already leaning back against the sofa, his eyes already closed.

“For now.” Jason agreed, as he claimed the chair adjacent to the occupied couch for himself. “I’ll be here, and I’ll wake you up in twenty minutes, alright?”

Spinelli nodded. “If you must.”

Jason watched on as the younger’s breathing evened out once again. Now that everything had been handled, he could let his mind focus on what Carly had told him. It would be so much easier if he could remember Spinelli, remember the big things, let alone the details, but all he had was flotsam and jetsam.

Being interested in Spinelli would have certainly explained the odd feelings he’d had over the past few days – how it had felt strange for Spinelli not to be here, even though that had been what he’d wanted, how he had put himself between Spinelli and Sonny, felt the need to avenge Sonny’s actions against him. Maybe there was a reason behind it all.

“Spinelli,” Jason said, when the twenty minutes had gone by. “Talk to me.”

“Mm, ‘m alive.” Spinelli mumbled, forcing his eyes opened long enough to mollify Jason. “How come Stone Cold is allowed to check himself out against the advice of the medically inclined ones and ignore their orders, but you insist on waking me up and doing as told?”

“It’s either me or the hospital, Spinelli.” Jason answered firmly, but the old routine wasn’t good enough this time. “C’mon, I want you to walk around with me for a minute first.” Spinelli groaned in protest, but complied with Jason as he hauled him to his feet. He kept his hands on the younger’s shoulders to keep him stable and guided him around the sofa a handful of times before settling him down again. “You can rest again, now.”

***

The same process continued on for the rest of the afternoon and into the night, with Jason rousing him every twenty minutes and marching him around. Sometime around midnight, instead of the trips around the couch, Jason steered him upstairs instead.

“Where’re we going?” He grumbled, leaning against Jason as they walked.

“You’re sleeping in my room so I can keep an eye on you, and get some sleep, too.” He explained, as his own headache had started up again.

“The Jackal overheard you conversing with the Valkyrie earlier.” Spinelli admitted, as Jason led him into the room, and settled him on the bed. “Does Stone Cold suppose what she claimed was true?”

Jason shrugged, and sat down beside his protégé. “I don’t remember. Maybe. If it was true, and I had told you, what would you have done?”

Spinelli took note, even with his concussed and sleep deprived brain, of the past tense of that question. If it –was- true. As in, it no longer was. “I confess I am equally unsure.” He decided.

***

Spinelli had fallen asleep again not long after his last words, and Jason opted to do the same. He kept his cell phone in hand and set it’s alarm to go off in thirty minutes, resigned to get a little bit of sleep before they had to go through the whole process again.

He’d only just laid his head down on the pillow when the memories assaulted him again, like they had the previous night – and by now he had realized that they weren’t dreams, but actual events. He dreamed of finding Maxie cheating with Matt Hunter, of having to be the one to tell Spinelli of her latest indiscretion. He dreamed of breaking up with Sam, telling her that he had reasons but he wouldn’t tell her what they were just yet. Dreamed of talking to Carly – and why he picked her over Sam or Robin he didn’t know – about it, telling her that he was pretty sure that he was more than interested in Spinelli. And then he dreamed of walking through the park in the pouring down rain and some Irish goon sauntering up to him with a crowbar. He’d been thinking about Spinelli, how to keep him safe, how to make sure that nothing ever touched him, when the metal had struck his skull. He remembered Spinelli – in a kind of abstract, distant way – could hear his voice but not make out the words, feel hands on his chest, his neck, his arms, trying to get him to do something, remembered a hand squeezing onto his for dear life and sirens over head.

The buzzing of his alarm pulled him back to consciousness, but he found that not only were the new memories of recent events there, but also the details, the things he hadn’t recalled. He remembered, all of it, somehow. Rather relieved by this news, he leaned over, shaking Spinelli softly. “Come on, time to get up.” He declared, as he recalled of the certainty of his previously questionable feelings. Spinelli’s actions since the attack had only seemed to solidify everything for him, really. “I remember now, and I think I know why I forgot you.”

This wasn’t right. Spinelli should have been awake by now. The gentle shaking was having no effect. There were no mumbled protests or attempts to evade his attempts at rousing him.

“Spinelli!” Louder, more insistent. “Spinelli, come on, wake up.”

Nothing.

Panic, terror, alarm, dread, helplessness, all things Jason was not used to feeling.

The cell phone, still in his hand, was dialing in seconds, as Jason leaned over his protégé. He was breathing, he had a pulse, he was alive, just not awake. “Robin.” He snapped into the phone when she answered him, sounding exhausted. “Robin, I can’t get Spinelli to wake up.”

“Get him in here now,” she demanded.


	4. Forget Me Not

It started with his eyes. Despite his desire to do nothing but sleep, he knew that he should open them, but he couldn't force them to obey his commands. For a second he'd thought maybe he was just that tired, but then his head started pounding worse than it had all night and he'd tried to reach up to it. His hand wouldn't move either.

Spinelli tried to make a noise, shift something, do something, anything that would alert Jason to his apparent dilemma, but nothing happened. Nothing would cooperate with him.

Thoughts started swimming, then, and that was the last thing he remembered.

***

Acute Subdural Hematoma. That was the term Patrick kept using. Jason only had a vague idea of what it meant – that Spinelli was bleeding into his brain – but he didn't need to know much more than that to understand the severity. If he had needed more, the MRI and CAT scan images that Dr. Drake had summarized for him would have sufficed.

"You're his medical proxy; I need you to consent to the surgery, so we can remove the blood clot." Patrick explained, looking impatient, as if every moment he spent explaining this to Jason was more like an hour.

"Can I see him first?"

"It'll take us a few minutes to get everything set up; you can have as long as that takes." The doctor told him, offering a clipboard with the pertinent paperwork attached.

Jason signed off and returned the papers to Patrick. With a nod, he headed off to prepare, leaving Jason alone with Spinelli. The younger had briefly returned to consciousness in the ambulance but had faded out on them again before anything could be asked or answered. It was all the more terrifying watching Spinelli fall into unconsciousness. Jason had only managed to sit by and squeeze Spinelli's hand.

It was a difficult thing, Jason reasoned as he stepped into the room Spinelli was temporarily placed in, seeing him like that, surrounded by wires and looking so small on the hospital bed - it just wasn't right. He was too still, too quiet. Spinelli was always moving, always talking, always thinking. This couldn't be Spinelli.

The room seemed to lengthen with every step he took towards Spinelli's prone form, he never seemed to get any closer, but eventually he reached out and his hand, of its own free-will, brushed the messy mop of Spinelli's hair away from the dark purple bruise on his forehead.

"Spinelli," he said, his voice low and quiet, as if speaking any louder would break the spell of whatever was keeping Spinelli here with him. "I am so sorry about these past few days. I put you through so much and then Sonny..." He had to stop then, to control the fury that took over his stone cold eyes. The hand that didn't move to seek out Spinelli's curled into a fist as he thought of what Sonny had done to him, and what he himself had allowed to happen. Sonny would pay for his crimes against the Jackal in blood and pain, Jason would guarantee it.

But that could wait. Spinelli was his priority right now – not revenge or justice or anything else. "Anyway," he said swallowing and speaking thickly, having no idea if the unconscious young man before him was aware of his presence, if he could hear him, but compelled to say the words nonetheless. "Anyway, what I wanted to tell you tonight, before this..." he gestured helplessly at the comatose form lying on the emergency room bed, "Is that I remember everything, even the fact that you were the one who found me and saved me in the park. I was distracted because I was thinking about you." He grinned, a small uplifting of his lips, "The truth is that for the past several weeks, I haven't been able to think of anything but you."

"Not that I mind," he added hastily, "I ended things with Sam and I didn't really understand why myself, at first, just that it wasn't working. That night in the park though, I got it, I finally got it. There was the threat from the new Irish organization moving in and I should have been thinking about all kinds of things - about keeping Sonny safe, and Carly and the kids, and yet, I didn't care about any of that. All I could think about, care about, was keeping you safe and that's when I knew it."

Here he paused and for a brief moment he closed his eyes, then he opened them and looked down once more at the recumbent form of his protégé, "I love you, Damian Spinelli, plain and simple. So, here's what you're going to do: You're going to make it through this surgery with flying colors and then, if you want," a spear of pain shot through him at the thought of what he'd do if the Jackal didn't want. "We'll figure this thing between us out. So, you fight," he said fiercely, "No excuses, you survive." Bending down, Jason brushed his lips across Spinelli's unresponsive ones and whispered, "I need you."

"Jason," a voice said, startling him out of the silent trance he'd fallen into by watching Spinelli. It was Patrick, with two surgical nurses just behind him. "We need to take him now."

Jason nodded and reluctantly surrendered his grip on Spinelli's hand and headed for his torturous exile to the surgical waiting area.

The waiting was the worst part. Just sitting there and waiting to be told whether the surgery had been successful or… well, Jason wasn't really ready to consider any other possible outcomes. Absently, as he paced back and forth across the waiting area, he wondered if these rooms were designed with the intention of driving their occupants insane. The room he was in had no windows, no clock, with no way of watching time progress. Had it not been for his watch, he would have been frozen in time. There was a television mounted to one wall, but it seemed perpetually tuned to soap operas and talk shows, no matter that it was something like two in the morning. The magazines tossed about on any flat surfaces available in the room were all outdated and folded over from use. Not that he felt much like reading them anyway.

Someone came by after about two hours and offered him a coffee. "There's breakfast being served in the cafeteria now, too, if you're interested." They said as they left, but he wasn't interested and he replied with as much before reclaiming his seat.

"Jason."

It was Robin this time. She hadn't been in on the surgery, but he thought maybe she might know something on Spinelli's status. "Have you heard anything yet?" He asked, on his feet and across the room in seconds.

"Not yet, no. But no news is usually good news." She assured him. "It is dangerous, what they're doing, but Patrick's good at what he does, Jase."

This did nothing to placate him, though. Nothing would, not until he saw Spinelli, could talk to Spinelli and know he was okay. "How much longer do you think it'll take?"

Robin shrugged, took a seat and motioned for him to do the same. "I don't know." She answered honestly. "If you want to go home and get some rest, you should. You're still recovering from your own bump to the head."

"I'm fine." He insisted. Because, as far as he was concerned, he was - his headache was little more than a dull achy feeling and he had his memories back. "I need to be here."

" _Doctor Scorpio to the ER,_ " Came the page from the PA system. " _Doctor Scorpio to the ER_."

"I'll come back and check on you later, see if I can find anything out about Spinelli for you." She said, even as she took her leave.

He'd fully intended to attempt to relax – as best he could with what was going on – and he'd succeeded in blocking out the rest of the word for about ten minutes before his cell phone rang out from his pocket.

Sam's name crossed the display screen and reluctantly he flipped it open. "Yeah?"

" _Hey, Spinelli told me about the accident, and I know he's not staying with you, but I checked Kelly's and he's not answering his phone. He was supposed to meet me for a stakeout and he hasn't showed yet_ …"

"We're at the hospital." Jason told her solemnly. "Sonny bashed his head into a wall. He was fine for a while but he passed out at home. He's in surgery now."

There was a long pause following his words, but Jason could hear the sounds of a car engine. " _I'll be there soon."_

And she was. Not fifteen minutes later, Sam was sitting across from him in the waiting room as he explained the events that had occurred between finding Spinelli at Sonny's and his passing out.

"So you remember everything now?" She asked, when he had concluded his account. He hadn't said as much, but given Spinelli's return to the Penthouse and how on edge Jason was over what had happened, she felt it was a safe assumption.

"Yeah," he nodded, glancing anxiously at his watch again – it had been close to three hours now since they'd taken Spinelli away from him. With a sigh, he forced himself not to think of what that could mean. "And I remember that I owe you an explanation, too, for some things."

Sam shrugged. "I wouldn't argue with that."

Jason dragged a hand over his face, sighed again as he figured out how to word this. "I, ugh, needed to break up with you so that I could think some things through. Where we stood – you agree that we hadn't really been working lately, right?"

She considered this question for a moment. Thought back to Jason's odd behavior over the couple weeks before they'd ended things. He'd been distant and distracted and not quite as interested. She'd seen the break-up coming even if she didn't know the reasons behind it. "Yes."

He nodded and continued on. "Well, lately – the last few weeks - I've been thinking about Spinelli. I can't stop, really – of keeping him safe from the mob, from the police, from Maxie's self-destructiveness – I was thinking about Spinelli when I got hit in the park, and I'm pretty sure that's why he's the only one I forgot."

"That kind of makes sense." She admitted, even as she attempted to process what he was telling her. Surely he did not end things solely because he was worried about Spinelli's safety. "When you say thinking about Spinelli, you mean…?"

"That I have feelings for Spinelli." He clarified firmly. "If – when," he paused to correct himself, "when he wakes up, he and I can figure it out."

It was certainly surprising to hear that Jason had been concealing such feelings from her, and it was equally surprising to think he'd been drawn to Spinelli, of all people, but none of that mattered right now. It took her a moment to gather her thoughts on how to reply to such an admission. With a sigh, she settled a hand on his shoulder, "He'll get through this, Jason." Sam promised. "I have a feeling Spinelli be around for a long time. And, when he does get better, I'll be around for both of you, whatever happens."

Jason stared at her. He hadn't been prepared for her to be so onboard with his reasons. "Thanks." He said simply.

She nodded in silent response to his surprised reply, and some of the awkwardness and tension in the room seemed to dissipate. "You think we'll hear something soon?"

"I hope so."

'Soon' ended up being another forty minutes. Patrick came in, Robin just behind him, and Jason and Sam both regarded them warily, as is often the case in such conditions. Patrick nodded slightly, enough to tell them that the news was good, and that had Jason moving.

"He's alright?"

"Spinelli's being moved out of recovery and into a room now. He's awake, and so far, everything is fine." Dr. Drake said, with a grin. He explained the details of the procedure, which had gone smoothly, and that Spinelli had full movement of arms and legs and fingers and toes, and likewise seemed to be in control of all his mental faculties. "He should make a full recovery."

Relief coursed through Jason's body at the words. Spinelli was okay. "Can I see him?"

Robin grinned and nodded. "Yeah, he's asking for you."


	5. Forget Me Not

"The Jackal must be on his way post haste!" Spinelli declared, as he rushed through the task of methodically packing up his trusty laptop and the other items haphazardly scattered across his desk. He'd only been in the P.I. offices for maybe thirty seconds, having previously been out working on surveillance for his and Sam's latest case, and now he was already nearly out the door again. "It has been irrefutably determined that our client's suspicions were accurate – his bail-jumping brother is, indeed, hiding out on Courtland Street with his rather disreputable comrades. I've alerted both the client and the necessary authorities of this find, and now the Ace of Cyberspace is apparently fated to be late for his assignation with Stone Cold!"

"Relax, Spinelli." Sam said, laughing at the mad rush of his words. "I called Jason already and told him you might be a few minutes late in getting back, since you were out on the case. He said he was running behind schedule, too, and that he'd meet you in the park."

He paused in his mad hastening to leave the base of operations of McCall & Jackal, no longer having reason for such breakneck speeds. "Oh." The hacker replied. "Most gracious thanks, Fair Samantha."

"No problem." She said, but he was already gone, offering a quick wave as he blew past her.

It wasn't raining this time, Spinelli was glad to note, as he headed for the park. There was no wind, or thunder, or lightning to darken the brilliant blue skies of the afternoon. The park was not in virtual abandon as it had been on his last dreaded visit – people were all over the place. And, none of them were Irish mobsters out to get Jason. That threat had been neutralized quite promptly, really.

His cell phone buzzed to alert him of a new text message. Flipping the device open, he found that it was from Jason. It read, simply 'steps'.

Spinelli nodded resolutely to himself. Jason was doing this to him on purpose, he knew, trying to get him over his rather justifiable avoidant behavior toward this section of the park. Granted, he had no more potential persons to find on the dreaded steps, so he really shouldn't have been worried.

He found Jason sitting on one of the lower steps, leaned back against the higher ones with his fingers locked behind his head. He looked decidedly more comfortable than the last time Spinelli had seen him there."Hey," Jason greeted, with a lazy smile.

"Greetings, Stone Cold." Spinelli replied with a small grin, moving to sit beside him.

"How'd your case go?" The elder asked, sitting up straight now.

"Quite well. We were able to locate the client's runaway sibling without much by way of trial and tribulation. The police will soon have him in custody, I imagine, if they do not already." He explained to Jason, as he's already mentioned the details of the case before he'd left the penthouse that morning. "Your meeting, did your meeting with the faithful workforce go as you expected?"

Jason nodded. "Yeah, they've all accepted the change in command. Most of them were loyal to me and not to Sonny anyway. They never had to deal with him directly, they always went through me."

Sonny had, in theory, gone missing just a week after Spinelli had gotten out of the hospital – that had been nearly three months ago now, and the police had only recently given up on their search for him. Jason had been held for the obligatory 48 hours by the PCPD, but, as per usual, nothing had turned up.

That didn't keep Spinelli from worrying that something would.

It didn't take an Ace of Cyberspace to know that Jason had been the one responsible for the crime, though Spinelli had originally been quite surprised at the realization that Jason had slain his own mentor in defense of his protégé. And while he didn't particularly like being the reason behind the demise of Mr. Sir – though one could argue that it wasn't exactly a loss to most of the inhabitants of Port Charles –Jason had explained himself as best he could and Spinelli held no grudge.

"Do you regret your actions in the matter at hand?" Spinelli asked, eyes downcast as he spoke.

"Do I regret knowing that there's one less person out there who can hurt you?" Jason countered, because that was what it had been about, at the end. He wouldn't have been able to work with Sonny after the lies he had spun over Spinelli's presence in his life, nor could he work with him knowing that Sonny's act of gratuitous violence that had nearly taken the hacker away from him. And it undoubtedly would have occurred again. "No."

"But Mr. Sir has been a part of your life for far longer than your Jackal has." The younger reasoned, not appeased by the short and simple answer. "Surely it was a difficult decision to make."

Jason shook his head and his hand found Spinelli's easily enough. "It wasn't a hard decision." He said, as he raised Spinelli's captured hand to his lips, pressing a soft kiss against his knuckles. "I chose you. From now on out I will always choose you."

Spinelli flushed slightly at Jason's actions - and at his words, - but was most assuredly not opposed. With an awkward, mesmerized grin, he stood, using their entwined hands to pull Jason to his feet as well. "Perchance we can make our return to Casa de Stone Cold?"

"Mm," Jason hummed, smiling himself now, too. He ducked his head to kiss Spinelli fervently, urging him away from the no-so-dreaded concrete steps with an arm draped over his lover's shoulder. "We can do that."

Spinelli found that he really didn't mind walking through the park these days.


End file.
